


Home Is Where The Heart Is

by skeletondust



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King, Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - No Upside Down, Cousin AU, Eleven has no powers, Eleven's name is also just Eleanor, IT crossover, It (2017) - Freeform, Movie: IT (2017), Richie Tozier is a Little Shit, Richie is like nine, Richie is the Wheeler's cousin, She's still adopted by Hopper though, Starcourt Mall (Stranger Things), Stranger Things 3, Stranger Things AU, Stranger Things/It Crossover, stranger things, totally important context
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2019-10-26
Packaged: 2020-10-21 08:42:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20690666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skeletondust/pseuds/skeletondust
Summary: The summer of 1985. Richie Tozier is nine years old and is looking forward to spending his time off of school with his friends. Two weeks into their vacation and suddenly Richie’s being sent to Hawkins, Indiana to stay with his aunt, uncle, and cousins for the rest of the season while his parents “work things out”, whatever that means. Now stuck in an unfamiliar town that’s somehow both larger and more boring than his own with none of his friends and much stricter rules, Richie doesn’t know what to do except annoy his cousins as much as possible, and try not to think about his friends.





	1. Chapter 1

“Beep beep, Trashmouth!”

The Losers Club laughed and shouted loudly as they biked through their small hometown of Derry, Maine. The sun was setting, dying the horizon shades of orange and yellow that faded into purple higher up, and staining the lazy summer clouds pink. The group of nine-year-olds made their way to their homes, in no rush to get anywhere after a long day together, despite the setting sun.

“C’mon, Eds, I didn’t say anything that bad!” Richie whined at his friends’ special way of telling him to shut up, but a laugh trailed his words and he smiled widely.

“Yes, you did!” Eddie accused. “You can’t talk about stuff like that!”

“Teenagers do. And they do on the TV shows my dad watches all the time! So why can’t I?”

“Uh, ‘cause you’re nine. We aren’t supposed to know about that stuff until we’re older!”

Beverly pulled her bike up on the opposite of Eddie’s. “Do you even know what it means?” She asked, a teasing smile on her face.

“Well, not really, but-” Eddie faltered, “But my mom says it’s not appropriate, it’s bad for your mental health to know about that stuff when you’re still little, and that can lead to all sorts of problems when you grow up, and not just mental stuff! You could get-”

He was quickly interrupted by Beverly shouting back at the rest of the group, “Do any of you guys know what it means?”

“No,” Mike said quietly.

“N-n-no,” Bill stammered.

“I don’t know half the stuff Richie says,” Ben said.

“There’s a reason we call him ‘Trashmouth’,” Stan said with a nod.

“See?” Beverly said, smiling mischievously. “It’s fine! No one’s gonna get some brain virus or whatever you’re talking about.” Before Eddie could tell her off, she started turning to go down her own street. “Bye, guys!” A chorus of bye’s and see ya’s followed after her. They continued on into the more suburban areas of town.

“You guys don’t get it! It’s like you want to get sick!” Eddie huffed.

“You’re just jealous that I’m more mature than you,” Richie teased. He had a smug smile on his face that quickly broke into giggles as Eddie rolled his eyes at him.

“You’re not more mature than me.”

“Yeah, Richie, y-y-you’re the least m-mature!” Bill said.

“I think Georgie’s the least mature!” Richie responded.

“He’s three!” Bill yelled as he peeled off towards his own street.

The rest of the group continued to joke as they split off to their homes one by one. Mike and Richie were the last to separate, with Mike continuing on the road down towards the farmland and Richie turning towards the poorer end of the suburbs.

He went on in silence down the streets, occasionally pushing curls out of the way of his glasses. He would have to nag his mom into giving him a haircut again soon, it was getting really shaggy. Or maybe he would let it grow out for the summer and show up to school with it way past his ears. If the fourth grade teachers were anything like the third grade teachers, they’d be all uptight about it and it would drive them crazy. He smiled a little at the thought. He could do it, too. It wasn’t like his mom would notice how long his hair was with how much she worked, and his dad never paid any attention to him anyway. The smile started to slip off of his face, so he went back to thinking of ways to annoy his new teachers when fall rolled around.

The sun was just barely peeking over the horizon when Richie finally made it home, the sky almost entirely purple save for the dark gray of the growing clouds and a thin line of orange at the bottom. He dumped his bike in the front yard and bounded up the old porch steps to the front door.

His hand was on the doorknob when he finally noticed the yelling. Yelling was so common in his house and neighborhood that it barely registered in Richie’s ears anymore and he was usually able to ignore it by blasting some of his dad’s old records, but something sounded… different, this time. His parents fought all the time, it wasn’t anything new, but something about the high-strung pitch of his mother’s voice and the way his father shifted from screaming his lungs out to a low growl that he could barely understand despite how thin and old the walls of the house were was really off putting. Usually when they fought, Mags was shrill and sarcastic while Wentworth raised his voice without actually yelling very much. But this was much, much harsher than anything Richie had ever heard before.

It was getting dark. The sun was almost completely down and it was still early enough in the season that nights still got kinda cold, and the clouds were starting to roll in, threatening to pour rain on everything. Maybe it was the first summer storm, the winds were picking up a bit and he thought Mr. Uris had mentioned something about it that morning at Stan’s house. He couldn’t stay outside in that, not even with the roof covering the porch. Richie steeled his nerves and gripped the doorknob harder, preparing himself to just march in and run up the stairs to his room as fast as possible, but then his dad screamed “Shut up, you fucking whore!” followed by the sound of something shattering and a small shriek from his mom.

Richie’s hand trembled. He let go of the doorknob.

With a huff of put-on indignation, Richie kicked one of the broken plastic porch chairs out of the way and sat down, leaning his chin in his hands, and he waited.

Whether it was a good thing or a bad thing, he didn’t have to wait very long. The yelling inside reached a pitch, both voices trying to reach over each other until the sharp sound of a hand hitting a face rang out. Richie startled and stared at the door, eyes wide, his glasses slipping down his nose a bit. The front door slammed open and Wentworth stomped out, marched over to his car, and gunned it out of the driveway.

“Wentworth!” Maggie called from the doorway. “Wentworth!”

Richie looked up at his mother, his eyes wide and confused. He pushed his glasses back up so he could actually see. Maggie stared down the street, watching as the car lights disappeared down around the corner. Blood was dripping out of her nose.

“Mom…”

Her eyes suddenly snapped over to her son. “Oh, Richie, I didn’t know you were home.” She wiped a hand under her nose, staring at the blood for a second. Then she stepped back inside. “Come inside, it’s going to rain.”

Normally, Richie would have made some kind of quip, something stupid and irritating to try to keep her attention on him. This time, however, he just stood and walked quietly inside, closing the door behind him.

The house was a mess. Well, the house was always a mess, no one ever really bothered to clean much, but it was much worse than usual. Furniture out of place, beer cans all over the living room floor, things knocked off of the wall and shelves and tables. How long had they been fighting for?

He followed behind his mother into the kitchen. She grabbed a paper towel and held it against her nose as she leaned over the sink. Richie tried to step towards her, but something crunched under his feet. He looked down, seeing glass all over the floor under his feet. The glass lead to an old family portrait, taken just before he had started kindergarten. They were all smiling in it. He didn’t think he had seen either of his parents smile genuinely since then. He stared at it for a bit, long enough to have to push curls out of his face again. Maybe he would wait to ask his mom for a haircut.

He stepped carefully over the glass and tugged on the back of Maggie’s shirt. “Mom, um… are you okay?” He asked, awkwardly.

She let out a long, clearly irritated sigh, shoving her own dark blonde curls out of her face. “Richie, just- not right now, okay? I need to think.”

Suddenly, looking around the wrecked kitchen, he realized how hungry he felt. He hadn’t had anything for breakfast, and he’d only had a peanut butter sandwich at Stan’s much earlier. “...What about dinner?”

“Richie, I-!” Maggie dropped the bloodstained paper towel down into the sink. She yanked open the refrigerator door, grabbed something and practically threw it at her son, who caught it but took a frightened step back. “Just take that, and go to your room. I need quiet for a while, alright? None of your damn loud music or yapping, okay?”

“O-okay.”

She sighed again, and walked off to the living room, shoving things out of the way with her feet as she went. He stood still for a moment, watching her go, before darting up the stairs as fast as he could and slamming his bedroom door behind him.

Richie dropped onto his bed and curled up on his side. His parents fought all the time, yelled at him and each other plenty, but his dad had never laid a hand on his mom before. He hadn’t even really hit Richie before, only ever having spanked him when he was little and occasionally giving him a light tap on the back of the head when he was being too obnoxious, in place of his friends’ usual “beep beep.” He never even got violent when he was drunk, unlike some of the parents in the neighborhood.

A tear slipped down his cheek. Richie quickly wiped it away, sniffled, and shoved fingers under his glasses to rub at his eyes, hard, trying to erase the tears.

He sat up and grabbed the thing his mother had thrown at him. It was a bag of sliced salami, almost empty and only a few days away from its expiration date.

He sighed and shoved a slice in his mouth. It was better than the nothing he got sometimes, when his father blew his money at some bar and his mother was too busy between her two jobs to go shopping.

This will all work itself out, he thought. It always did.

It was, after all, the beginning of the summer. Nothing could happen to ruin the fun he was going to have with his friends, not even his parents fighting. Nothing.

\-----

Karen Wheeler hummed to herself as she stood over her kitchen counter in the small town of Hawkins, Indiana, chopping up onions for the dinner she was preparing for that dinner tonight. She did a mental check of everything she had to do: add the onion to the tomato sauce on the stove and set it to simmer, let it heat up and add in the meatballs she had made that morning so they could cook, set water to boil and add in the pasta, put garlic butter on the French bread she had bought and let that toast in the oven for a little bit, then she’d have to wash the dishes because she never made the kids do them on weekend evenings even in the summer. Oh, and she still had to clean the living room, finish the laundry, look over Holly and Mike’s summer reading lists-

She let out a quiet sigh. The work just never ended for a housewife, did it? She decided to put her focus into the meal and worry about the rest when the time came for it.

Then the phone rang. Karen scoffed. “Of course. Ted!” She called into the living room. “Ted, honey, could you get that please?” No response, save for the sounds of the TV and some light snoring.

She shook her head and quickly scraped the chopped onion into the sauce, hurrying over to the phone.

“Wheeler residence, this is Karen speaking. How may I help you?” She asked with practiced hospitality and cheerfulness.

There was silence for a moment. “...Karrie? It-It’s me,” a familiar voice said.

Karen smiled despite herself. She hadn’t heard from her younger sister in years. “Maggie! My goodness! How are you? It’s been, what, five years? How’s Wentworth? And- oh, and little Richie!”

“Th-they’re fine,” Maggie said, with some hesitation.

Karen’s brow furrowed. It may have been a while, but she still recognized the way her sister spoke when something was wrong. “Maggie. What is it?”

Maggie sighed. “It’s- Richie’s fine. But Wentworth, he- he, uh… N-nevermind, I shouldn’t have called. It was a stupid idea, we don’t get along, anyway. Sorry for wasting your time.”

“Margaret,” Karen said, firmly.

There was a moment of quiet, broken by a sniff on Maggie’s end of the phone.

“Mags.” She hadn’t used that nickname since they were teenagers. “We may not get along the best and I may disagree with some of your life choices, but you are still my little sister. You’re still a part of this family. I’m always here for you and I know you would be there for me.” She wasn’t actually so sure about that, but comfort was more important than being completely truthful at the moment. “So please, Mags, tell me what’s wrong. I want to help.”

There was another sniff. “Wentworth, he uh… he hit me, last night.” Karen stifled a gasp. “I’m not entirely sure what happened, but… we were fighting, arguing. We argue all the time, it never actually amounts to anything besides one of us sleeping on the couch, maybe Went going down to the bar for the night, though he does that most nights. But tonight, we just- we just, uh, the whole thing just kept escalating, we both broke some things, and then he just hit me. Gave me a damn bloody nose. Ran off, afterwards, probably to a bar. Hasn’t come home yet.”

Halfway through the rant, Nancy walked in the front door, back from her summer job for the day. Karen carefully covered the end of the receiver and asked her to check on the sauce and put some water on. She must not have covered up her worried expression as well as she had hoped, as the same worried look appear on her daughter’s face. The teenager just nodded and went to the kitchen.

“Did he hurt Richie?” Karen asked quietly so no one else would hear when her sister finished speaking.

“No, uh, he didn’t get home until after Went had left.” She hesitated. “Thank God, right?”

“Yes, thank goodness.” She tapped her fingers on the little table the phone usually sat on, trying to think of what to do. “What do you need, Maggie? What can I do to help you?”

“I just… I don’t want this to go any further than one slap. I need time to- to work things out with Wentworth, but…” Maggie paused, taking a deep breath. “But I can’t have Richie around for it. You know, I’m too busy working my ass off at two jobs everyday to look after him properly half the time, but he’s my son and I do care for him, I love him to death, even with that mouth he has.”

“I know you do, Maggie, I know.”

“He needs to be somewhere I know he’ll be safe while we figure this all out. I don’t think I can guarantee that here. I know he’d be safe with you.”

Karen nodded firmly, even though Maggie couldn’t see it. “Of course. Of course he can come stay here. How long do you think he’ll need to stay?”

“I don’t know. But no longer than the end of summer,” Maggie rushed to add. “I don’t want to pull him away from his school. He’s starting fourth grade, ya know?”

“Alright. That should be fine. I’ll have to talk to Ted-” She looked over at her sleeping husband in the living room as Maggie gave a dejected sigh. “But listen. If you can, get on a bus to Indiana tonight or tomorrow morning. Call me when you have the tickets or have the chance, and I can pick you up from whatever station you end up at. Okay?”

“What about your husband?”

“Well, he’ll just have to deal with it this one time.”

Maggie gave a breath of relief. “I’ve missed you, Karrie.”

“I’ve missed you too, Mags. Call me later, alright?”

“Alright.”

Karen let her sister hang up the phone first. She turned back into the kitchen, where Nancy was keeping an eye on the stove.

“Nancy, sweetheart? Could you finish up dinner for me, please? There’s something important I need to talk to your father out.”

Nancy nodded. “Sure, mommy.”

She smiled at her daughter, who smiled right back but with the tight lips that indicated her worry. “I’m sorry to dump this on you right after work. The meatballs are in the fridge, just put them in the sauce. Then there’s some French bread in the cabinet, put some garlic butter on that and put them in the oven for a few minutes to toast. It should already be heated. Thank you, honey.”

Karen turned on her heels and marched towards the living room. She shook her husband’s shoulder, not bothering to use the usual gentleness she tried to keep. “Ted, wake up. Now. We need to talk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you all enjoyed this chapter! I wrote it in about two days and I'm proud of it and myself.  
Just as a note, this is a no powers, no Upside Down AU. It's also a no IT AU, which doesn't matter anyway as the kids are still about three years off from that, and the Losers Club have been friends since they were all around kindergarten/1st grade (ages 5-7), with Mike Hanlon joining in the 2nd grade and Ben in the 3rd.  
Anyway, shouldn't take too long to get the next chapter out even with my college levels of homework! I'm also working on a twin AU for Richie and Mike cuz I like that idea too, so keep an eye for that if you're interested!  
~Mel


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie and Maggie start their journey to Hawkins, while Karen and Ted tell their kids about the situation.

Richie spent his entire Friday at home. After seeing what his dad had done to his mom and seeing her staying home from work for the first time since… ever, he didn’t feel right leaving her alone. He lied when his friends when they called, telling them he was sick and couldn’t come out and it was probably better if they didn’t come over either. Then he split his time between trying to help his mother clean the house, watching tv, watching for his father through the kitchen window, and keeping his mouth shut.

For dinner, Maggie let Richie order a pizza with any toppings he wanted and a two liter of coke. They never ordered out or went to restaurants when it wasn’t someone’s birthday, they didn’t even get fast food more than once a month. They just couldn’t afford it. It was weird. Everything was weird. But Richie didn’t say anything about it, except for “thank you.”

After the pizza arrived and he was settled on the living room floor in front of an episode of Magnum P.I., Maggie went into the hallway to take a phone call. Richie couldn’t really make out what she was saying but he couldn’t keep his attention on the TV even though it was Magnum P.I., so he kept trying to strain his ears to hear.

The only things he was able to get out of his eavesdropping was the sound of his mom’s sniffling, her saying that he was fine, and the name ‘Karrie’. Who the hell was Karrie? He couldn’t think of any coworkers of his mom’s with that name, though he didn’t really know many of the people she worked with. She didn’t have any real friends either, she was too busy for that. So who was she even talking to?

There was a click as the phone was put back on the receiver. Richie snapped his eyes back to the TV, pretending to be absorbed in the show, and shoved half a slice of pepperoni-and-mushroom pizza in his mouth. There was a moment of shuffling in the hallway, what he recognized as something being pulled out from the closet under the stairs. Footsteps followed to the living room.

“Richie,” Maggie said from the doorway. She held an old, beat-up gray suitcase in her hand.

“Hnnm?” He asked through a mouth full of food.

“Come on, we’re going to pack some of your things.”

He swallowed his half-chewed food. Packing? “Why? I’m still eating. But why?”

She pursed her lips. “Richard, don’t start.”

“Fiiine,” he whined, dropping his pizza slice and starting to follow her up the stairs. “But I’m determined to finish that whole thing myself so I can brag about it, so I gotta go back when we’re done.” He couldn’t keep his mouth shut for long.

Maggie packed clothes and toiletries with a level of meticulousness she had never shown before. Richie sat on his bed and watched, making little quips and statements about nearly every article of clothing she so carefully folded up and placed in the suitcase. Once that was finished, she emptied his school bag of everything he’d gathered up and hadn’t bothered to go through over the past school year, ending up with a pile of papers, pencils with the erasers chewed off, candy wrappers, and rocks he had thought were cool on the floor. She gave him a little look but didn’t start scolding like she normally would have on the rare occasion she actually checked his bag, so Richie took the chance to launch into a ramble about why he had found each rock from his bag cool. Maggie listened patiently, for a while.

“-and this one!” He held up a plane gray rock that was about the size of his palm. “Well, this one’s not that cool, but I threw it at Patrick Hockstetter when he was calling Stan bad names for Jewish people, and I hit him square his stupid mouth and gave him a split lit, so that’s pretty awesome.”

“Okay, Richie.” His mom placed a hand on his shoulder, stopping him from bouncing on his knees on his bed, which he hadn’t even noticed he had started doing. “Pick a few of your toys and books and put them in here, but don’t overfill it.”

“It’s not like I have that many toys,” he stated plainly. 

Maggie gave him a small smile before leaving the room. He watched after her for a second until she disappeared into her own room, closing the door behind her. He stared for another second. Then, he jumped off of his bed and went over to his very old and practically empty toybox.

The lid creaked when he opened it. The box wasn’t even half full, only having a few toys and stuffed animals in it, some still hanging around from when he was a baby. Crumbling and torn books that he had gotten when he was learning to read in kindergarten lined the bottom. Richie pushed his chipped alphabet blocks and the two weebles he hadn’t lost into the corner, grabbing the three toys he still used the most when he wasn’t playing outside or with his friends- the rubik’s cube he had gotten for his birthday that he had yet to solve, an old yo-yo he had technically stolen from Bill, and a He-Man figure with a chewed off leg he had found next to a trash bin.

With the toys shoved into his bag, Richie walked on his knees over to the corner next to the window where he kept his books, largely taken from and never returned to the school library or ‘borrowed’ from friends, in stacks on the floor. He picked up a few random comic books he had also technically stolen from Bill, his mother’s old copy of The Little Prince, a library copy of A Wrinkle In Time, and James and the Giant Peach, the only book he owned that was always his and which he would never admit to anyone was his favorite book in the whole word. When anyone asked, he said Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark was his favorite, but really it was his second favorite.

He tossed his bag onto his bed and then crawled under it. Miscellaneous drawings and knick-knacks as well as a pair of rain boots and snow boots took up most of the space, but near the wall there were two shoeboxes. He ignored one, it only had rocks and funny-shaped twigs in it, and pulled the other closer to him. He pulled the top off and tossed it out of sight. Inside the box was a slightly worn care bear, Bedtime Bear specifically. Beverly had given it to him last summer when he had mentioned he didn’t really sleep too well, claiming it would help him have good dreams. He had slept with it every night since. He hid it to keep it safe, and so his parents wouldn’t think he was still a baby for sleeping with a teddy bear.

He quickly hid Bedtime Bear under everything else in his backpack and zipped it up.

Maggie came out of her room just then, Wentworth’s small brown travel suitcase in hand. She took Richie’s larger suitcase as he slung his bag over his shoulder, then the two went downstairs and out onto the front porch, only stopping for Maggie to make a quick call to the taxi company and for Richie to turn off the TV.

They sat on the porch mostly in silence, with Maggie watching for the taxi while Richie fidgeted, picking at the boards of the stairs and kicking at pebbles on the walkway. Some people down the street shouted cheerfully and started setting off fireworks.

“The sun’s not even down yet, you won’t be able to see them, dumbasses!” Richie shouted, knowing full well that they wouldn’t be able to hear him.

“Richard!” Maggie scolded.

“What? It’s true! Would you rather I lie and call them smartasses? They aren’t being smart, they’re being dumb!” He waved his arms around as he spoke.

“It’s the swearing I didn’t like, Richie.”

“I can’t call them ‘dumb butts’, mom! I’m insulting them, not their butts, although their butts are probably pretty freakin’ dumb, too…”

Maggie rolled her eyes and shook her head. “I don’t know where you get that mouth of yours. Certainly not from me.”

“TV. I totally get it from TV.” He grinned. “Ya know, it’s kinda your fault? I mean, you just let me watch whatever I want whenever I want and you let me run around with a buncha- a buncha hooligans!”

His mom grinned right back at him and ruffled his hair. He tried to squirm away with a laugh. “You’re a hooligan, little man.”

They lapsed back into quiet. The neighbors kept setting off fireworks. Richie fidgeted. He tapped the heels of his beat-up, barely-white-anymore converse on the steps. He shook his head just to have something to do. Light glinted off of his glasses from behind him. He twisted around, seeing the lights still turned on in the house. Right, they hadn’t turned those off. They hadn’t put the pizza in the fridge or the trash either, had they?”

“Shouldn’t you turn the lights off?” He asked, turning to his mom. “And what about the pizza? We’ll get flies. And mold. That’s gross. And if you leave the lights on, the electric bill’ll run up, and I know we can’t afford that, and then we won’t have power again until you pay for it, and then you won’t be able to groceries, and then I’ll have to eat just bologna for a week again and I hate bologna, you know, it’s really gross-”

“Richie, hush!”

He shut his mouth. He frowned.

Maggie sighed and rubbed her hand on her forehead. “You don’t need to worry about all that. I’m your mother, I’ll worry about it, okay? If you keep worrying, you’re going to turn into that friend of yours, uh-” she snapped her fingers, trying to remember. “What’s his name…?”

“Eddie. Mr. Uris says he’s a hy-po-chon-dri-ac.” He pronounced the word carefully.

“Yeah, you’ll turn into Eddie if you keep worrying about every little thing. You don’t want that, do you?”

Richie made a face, scrunching up his nose and eyes. He loved Eddie, Eddie was one of his best friends, but he’d rather die than turn into a germ-obsessed maniac like that. “Ew. No.”

“Exactly. So leave the worrying to me.”

He scratched the back of his neck. “Hey, uh, mom?”

“Yeah?”

“Um… where are we going, anyway?”

She turned her head and looked him right in his eyes, which he always thought looked obnoxiously magnified with his glasses on whenever he looked in the mirror. Hers were the same dark brown as his. “Do you remember your Auntie Karen?”

He took a second to think but couldn’t remember anything, so he just shrugged. “Nope.”

“Didn’t think you would, last time we visited you were still a toddler. Well, I have an older sister, and her name’s Karen.”

“Is that the Karrie you were talking to on the phone?”

She lowered her brows at him. “Were you eavesdropping on me?”

“No! I just… overheard.”

She smiled lightly. “Yes, that was her. She and her family live out in Indiana. She has three kids. Nancy should be an adult by now, and Holly should still be little, but I think Mike is only a few years older than you. We’re… going to visit them for a little while.”

More questions rushed through his head than before, and he couldn’t keep himself from asking them anymore. “Why? Without dad? For how long? Can I call my friends and tell them I won’t be around? They’ll be really worried if I don’t.”

“Whoa, slow down!” She forced a chuckle. “Yes, without dad. I don’t know how long. And, uh… you can call your friends from a payphone, I should have enough quarters for a quick call. The taxi’s already on it’s way.”

He furrowed his brow. “Okay, but that doesn’t answer all of my questions. Why are we going to Auntie Karen’s?”

A frown passed over Maggie’s face but she tried to cover it up with a thin-lipped smile. “Just to visit.”

That was the most obvious lie Richie had ever heard in his life. And he lied a lot. “Alright.”

The taxi showed up a few minutes later. He helped his mom put their bags in the trunk and then slid into the back seat. 

\-----

Dinner was tense. Karen was quiet, not asking any of the usual questions she asked her children about their days. Ted never talked much anyway, but the behavior of their mother clued Mike into the fact that something was going on. Nancy had slightly more of an idea of what was going, having overheard some of her mother’s phone conversation while she was finishing cooking, but she was still at a loss for what the whole situation was.

Nancy picked at her food, not finding quite as appetizing as it would have been if dinner were not so unusually awkward. She watched as Mike practically scarfed down his food and as Holly quietly pretended her spaghetti noodles were worms. She tried to keep her eyes off her parents but found them drifting back even as she tried to distract herself with her siblings’ eating habits and the barely eaten food on her own plate. Quiet at the dinner table always meant something bad, and usually her parents announced whatever bad news they had to tell when everyone was about half way through their first helping, but Mike was already on his second and both Karen and Ted were both nearly done their first.

She pushed a meatball around with her fork. She remembered the last time dinner had been this awkward, that was three years ago when their grandpa had gotten cancer. She briefly wondered if any of their remaining grandparents had gotten sick, but that left her with the question of who ‘Margaret’ was, that being one of the few things that Nancy had heard. A new caretaker, maybe? No, the tone her mom had used when saying it was one that she reserved for family members. Firm but calm and letting them know that she needed their attention.

So, whoever it was was definitely a family member. But which one? Not one of their grandparents, it seemed, she wouldn’t have gotten so motherly with them. Definitely not one of their father’s siblings, they only called around Christmas, sometimes Easter. A cousin, then, maybe.

Nancy tapped the fingers of her free hand on her thigh. Looked like she was going to have to ask.

“So, mom,” she said as nonchalantly as possible. Karen looked up from her meal, a thin smile forced on her face. “Who was that you were on the phone with earlier?”

Karen glanced at Ted, having some sort of conversation with their eyes. She nodded and Ted turned to look at them.

“Kids, we need to talk.”

Now, everyone was paying attention. Mike stopped shoving food in his face to listen and Holly sat with spaghetti noodles hanging off of her fork, staring at their parents.

“Do either of you remember your Aunt Maragret?” Karen asked, addressing only her older children.

Ah, so that’s who this was about. Nancy had nearly forgotten all about her.

Mike thought for a second, then shrugged. “Kinda? I think I remember her visiting once for Thanksgiving or something.”

“She was here for Thanksgiving when I was eleven, and I’m pretty sure she visited a few times before that, but I don’t remember much about her,” Nancy answered.

“Who’s Aunt Margaret?” Holly asked.

“Aunt Margaret, or you can call her Aunt Maggie, is my little sister.”

“I’m a little sister!” Holly said excitedly.

Karen smiled at her youngest. “Yes, you are.” She turned back to her older children. “She was around a lot when you were a baby, Nancy, but then she married your Uncle Wentworth and moved to his hometown in Maine.”

“I don’t remember Uncle Wentworth at all,” Nancy admitted.

“No, I didn’t think you would. He never really visited.” She paused and took a breath. “Well, Maggie and I had a bit of a falling out a while back. We hadn’t been talking much before, not since she married Wentworth, but after that she didn’t call at all.”

Memories were starting to come back to her. Nancy could remember that Aunt Maggie had the same blondish-brown hair as her mother and the last time she had visited eight years ago she had had a toddler with her that wouldn’t stop babbling at the top of his lungs.

“Doesn’t she have a kid? Um, a son?”

“Yes, she does, and that’s who this is about.”

Nancy and Mike gave each other a look. This was sounding as bad as the tension had made it seem.

Their mother picked up on their distress and quickly moved to finish her explanation. “Nothing happened to him, I promise. But, Maggie and Wentworth are having some… issues. So, Richie is going to come stay with us for a while.”

“What kind of-” Nancy kicked Mike from under the table. He hissed and glared at her but she didn’t bother to look at him.

“How old is Richie?” She asked in his place.

“He should be about nine now.”

“Nine?” Mike struggled not to pull a face. “Where’s he gonna sleep?”

“Well, we,” Karen grabbed Ted’s hand, the only sign of actual affection Nancy had ever really seen between her parents, “were thinking he would stay in your room, Mike.”

Mike couldn’t stop himself from pulling a face. “My room?” Nancy shot him a glare. “Uh, I mean, I have the bunk bed, but there's not that much room.”

“Well, that's just what we were thinking, unless…” Karen trailed off, tilting her head in a manner that was trying to suggest something.

“Unless what?”

Unless you sleep in the basement, Nancy thought.

“Unless you would be willing to sleep in the basement,” Karen said in that sweet tone mothers always use when they’re trying to get their kids to do something they know they really don’t want to do. Unfortunately, that tone hadn’t worked on Mike since he was seven.

“Seriously!?” He demanded. “Mom, I-”

“Michael,” Ted warned with a significantly less amount of apathy than he normally kept in his voice.

“But dad!”

Nancy leaned her head in her hand. Maybe she shouldn’t have asked at dinner, but it would have come to this either way, she supposed. At least then Holly wouldn’t be on the verge of bursting into tears.

“Mike, you are such a brat sometimes,” she scolded.

Karen was trying to split her attention between calming her youngest daughter and telling off her son. “Michael, please, can we save this for later?”

“Mom-” Nancy kicked him again. “Ow! Ugh, fine.” He stood to leave the table.

“Put your dishes in the kitchen! You know the rules.”

He grabbed his dishes and marched them out to the kitchen, quickly making his way upstairs afterwards. Well, at least he didn’t stomp or slam his door. He was growing up a little bit.

“Mommy, why’s Mike mad?” Holly asked, rubbing at her eyes.

“Oh, he’s just being silly, sweety, don’t worry,” Karen soothed. “Here, finish your spaghetti, then we’ll get you ready for bed, okay?”

“Okay,” the little girl sighed dejectedly.

Nancy frowned. “I’m sorry, mom, I should have waited until after dinner to ask.”

“No, no, it’s alright. I shouldn’t have let dinner get so awkward in the first place. And you know your brother, he’s a teenage boy, they’re very touchy at that age.” She cut up Holly’s spaghetti as she spoke, making it so the girl could eat it faster. “We’ll tell you both everything once Holly’s in bed, alright?”

Nancy nodded with a tiny smile to reassure her mother and finally started to eat her now cold food.

\-----

An hour later, Nancy and Mike were sat on the living room couch, Ted next to them in his la-z-boy and Karen on the edge of the other, little used armchair.

Mike slouched in his seat and kept his arms crossed tightly over his chest. He knew he was being a bit ridiculous, but come on, it was his room he was bargaining for. That was a bit ridiculous in and of itself. It was his own goddamn bedroom, after all, and had been since he was born. He wasn’t about to just give it up, even temporarily, without some incentive.

“Like I said at dinner,” Karen began, “Aunt Maggie and Uncle Wentworth are having some issues.”

“What kind of issues?” Mike repeated the question he had tried to ask at dinner. Nancy didn’t kick him this time, much to his relief. She was a fiend in those heels she wore to work.

“Wentworth is, um…” Karen trailed off, looking at a loss of how to put things lightly, or politely, or something. Mike tried not to roll his eyes. He wasn’t little anymore, and Nancy was an actual adult now, he didn’t get why she still acted like they were little kids.

“An alcoholic,” Ted finished for her.

“Y-yes, he is. According to Maggie, he doesn’t usually get violent when he’s drunk.”

Nancy took in a small but sharp breath. Mike glanced at her, his eyebrows creasing.

Karen sighed, letting some of her worry and frustration slip through. Their dad reached his hand over to hers. “But, recently, he hit her. Maggie says it’s never happened before and that she wants to work through these problems with Wentworth, but she wants Richie to be somewhere she knows he’ll be safe while they do, even though he’s never hit him.”

A moment of silence washed over the group as they were allowed to process the information. Mike looked down at his feet. Really, he should have realized it was something bad like that. He knew how his family worked. He poked at a loose thread in the otherwise pristine carpet.

“How long is Richie going to stay for?” Nancy asked before he got the chance to think it.

“We aren’t entirely sure. But at the most, until the end of the summer.”

End of the summer. It was only the end of June right now. Two months of either sharing his room with a little kid or sleeping in the basement. Which sounded worse to deal with it? Did it really matter?

Before he could ask any questions of his own, the phone started ringing.

“Oh, that’s probably her.” Karen shuffled out of the living room to answer the phone.

“Michael.”

He looked up at his father, who was leaning forward in his chair, hands folded in front of him. The way he sat whenever he had something serious to say to someone. Mike pulled himself up just slightly so his back was a bit straighter, though he kept his arms crossed.

“Listen to me. You’re a young man now and I think you’re mature enough to understand the, uh, the seriousness of this situation.” He spoke slowly just as he normally did, but deliberately. Mike kept quiet and listened. "I understand that this is sudden and probably frustrating, but it's just for the summer. Please don't make this harder for your mother."

Mike frowned, and Ted sighed. "We're giving you a choice. I think you've earned that much. You can share your room with Richie or you can stay on the pull-out couch in the basement so you can both have your own space. You don't have to decide now, but please give us an answer by the morning."

He nodded. "Yeah. ...I will."

Ted seemed satisfied with that answer and shifted to look at his daughter, who perked up in her seat. "Nancy, I know you're an adult now and you've got work and you've got to get ready for college, but I'm going to ask you to help out your mother as much as you can, please."

Nancy smiled lightly. "Of course, daddy."

Ted gave his two older kids a half smile, then sat back in his la-z-boy, seemingly content.

Karen came back into the room, a look of mild exasperation on her face. "That was Maggie. She and Richie are getting on a bus now, they're going to take it to Buffalo and then transfer to another bus to Indianapolis. They should be there around 9 p.m. tomorrow."

"Do you want me to go pick them up?" Ted asked.

"No, no." She sighed. "I'll pick them up, she's my sister."

"I could come with you for company on the way there, mom, if you want," Nancy offered.

"That's very sweet, Nancy, but could you stay back and look after Holly for me, please?"

"Sure, mom."

Nancy glanced over at him with just her eyes, trying to tell her brother something. Mike looked back at her and she tilted her head slightly towards their mother. Oh, great.

“I could go with you, mom,” Mike said, though he hesitated slightly. Nancy looked happy that he had gotten her message. He tried not to roll his eyes too obviously.

“That would be great, sweety, thank you.” A bit of worry left Karen’s face. Mike was glad enough for that. “We’ll leave a bit after dinner tomorrow, in case there’s any traffic. It’s about an hour’s drive.” She fiddled with the end of her shirt for a moment. “Alright, I think I’m going to turn in early tonight. Goodnight.” She gave both her children a hug, telling them she loved them, then gave Ted a kiss on the cheek before heading upstairs.

Mike headed down to the basement and dropped onto the old couch with a huff. Man, this was going to be some kind of experience. He couldn’t even remember his little cousin and barely remembered his aunt. If his mother had stopped talking to them for several years, he could only imagine what they were like. At least, he could only imagine what his aunt was like. His cousin- Richie, that was his name, Richie- couldn’t really be blamed for his parents’ behavior, especially with how little he must’ve been when it all happened.

He couldn’t be blamed for being nine, either. Mike wondered what sharing a room with a nine-year-old would be like. He had never shared his room with anyone for more than a couple of nights before, and then those were his friends. It probably depended on what Richie was like, he supposed, which he wouldn’t know until he met the kid.

He picked at a few loose threads in the old couch, thinking. He needed to have an answer by morning.

Mike grabbed his SuperComm off of the nearby table. “Lucas, are you there? Over.”

“Yeah, what is it? Over,” Lucas answered, voice crackling through the walkie-talkie.

“I need your opinion on something. Over.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A question for you all: Am I telling too much and not showing enough? I'm trying to find a good balance between the two.  
This chapter took a bit longer to write than I would have liked, but I still like how it turned out! Chapters following will largely only be split between two perspectives, Richie's and someone else's, unless I feel like the chapter needs more than just that. As far as this one goes, I feel like I wrote Richie and Nancy pretty well, but I'm not entirely sure with Mike. I was trying to show that he's a teenage boy, so a little self absorbed, but overall a pretty good kid. Hope you guys got that from this.  
From now on, I'm going to try to release a new chapter every Saturday. Can't make any promises though, I am a college student. On top of that, I'm going to start writing my twin au for Mike and Richie, so look out for that sometime this week, too!  
~Mel
> 
> Edit 9/25/2019: Changed "Matilda" to "James and the Giant Peach" cuz I didn't realize Matilda didn't come out until 1988
> 
> Edit 9/29/2019: Changed Nancy's age of Maggie and Richie's last visit from ten to eleven to better make sense with comments in the next chapter


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mike finally meets his cousin, and Richie is surprised by the Wheeler household.

When Richie stepped off the bus in Indianapolis, he felt like he was going to explode from all the pent-up energy he had gathered on the nearly day long journey. The ride from Portland to Buffalo hadn’t been too bad; it was an overnight bus with no stops, so he had spent most of the time sleeping, curled up against his mother with his backpack held tight in his arms. But the ride- or, he should say  _ rides _ \- from Buffalo to Indianapolis was absolutely killer. They had to go from bus to bus to bus, with little time in between to stop for food or bathroom breaks. When they were on the buses, there was absolutely  _ nothing  _ to do. Richie had spent some of the earlier day reading his books or fiddling with his rubik’s cube, but had quickly grown bored with that and had spent the rest of the day being, as his mother put it, ‘a pain in the ass’. He couldn’t help that he couldn’t sit still or stop his mouth from running, he wished he knew how to explain that to her.

Richie raised his arms above his head and stretched, jumping in place a few times as he did. The bus stop wasn’t too busy, though it was busier than any place in Derry when it was dark out, save for the bars and the movie theater. It was still an unusual sight for a nine-year-old that had never left his small hometown before to his memory, but he was glad there were still few enough people that he didn’t have to worry about making an attempt that he knew he would fail to not hit anyone while jumping around.

Maggie stretched out her own limbs, then grabbed both suitcases off the ground and walked towards the visitor waiting area. Richie scampered after her, swinging his arms.

“Hey, mom, what time is?”

“Time for you to get a watch,” she teased tiredly.

“Time for you to get me a watch!” he responded with a smile.

She just kept walking. Richie bit his lip and skipped next to her.

They stepped into the waiting area and fortunately didn’t have to do any waiting of their own. Maggie put their suitcases down as a woman with a salon blonde perm approached them, followed by a gangly, annoyed-looking teenage boy who didn’t look much older than Henry Bowers and his goons, but did look a lot dorkier. The two women hugged in that way that adults pretending they were really happy to see each other did.

“Oh, Karrie, it’s so great to see you,” Maggie said.

“It’s been so long! How was the trip here?”

“It was fine. Well- I’ll tell you later.” She put her hand on Richie’s shoulder and pushed him forward. “You haven’t seen him since he was a baby, but this is Richie. Richie, this is your Auntie Karen.”

Richie adjusted his glasses and put on his best grin. “Hi, Auntie Karen!”

“Wow, you’ve gotten really big since I last saw you!” Karen returned the smile. She seemed nice, at least. That was more than he could say for most adults when they met him. “How old are you now?”

“I turned nine in March. We couldn’t get a cake and mom can’t cook, but the chef at the diner she works at made me a whole stack of waffles with whipped cream and chocolate sauce and rainbow sprinkles. Then my friends, they-”

“Richie. Richie!” Maggie interrupted. “I’m sure Auntie Karen would love to hear about it, but save it for the car ride, alright?”

He rolled his eyes. She had made him be quiet for hours on the buses, now he had to be quiet here, too?

Karen apparently elected to ignore his behavior as she pushed her own son towards the group.

“Richie, this is Mike, your cousin. I doubt you remember him, but you used to play together when you were little.”

“Hi,” Mike said, giving an awkward smile and holding out his hand for a handshake. Richie took his hand and shook, way harder than was necessary, though he didn’t mean to. Mike winced. “Ouch!”

“Richie, be nice,” Maggie scolded.

“I am!” He insisted. “It’s not my fault he’s a twig.”

“You’re skinnier and shorter than him.”

“Well, I’m nine! What's your excuse?" He playfully stuck his nose up at Mike, who didn't seem to get the memo as he pulled a face.

“Dude, I’m fourteen.”

Karen gave a light laugh. “Good, you’re getting along already! Well, we should get going, we had to park a few blocks away. I can’t believe how expensive parking is here, it’s ridiculous. Here, let me carry this for you.” She grabbed the smaller of the two suitcases.

“Oh, Karrie, you don’t have to,” Maggie smiled tiredly.

“You’ve had a long day, it’s the least we can do.” She gestured for Mike to take the other suitcase. He huffed but grabbed the bag anyway. Karen smiled a very motherly smile. “Teenagers,” she said to her sister.

Indianapolis was a far cry from Derry. Richie realized this the second they stepped outside of the bus station. Portland wasn’t even this big. He wouldn’t describe it as bustling or busy like NYC was in the movies, maybe it was like that during the day, but it was still nothing like anything Richie had seen in real life. Lights were still on everywhere, not just streetlights either, and while it wasn’t exactly noisy there were still plenty of people walking to and from the station and wherever else they were going to, and plenty of cars were still rushing down the street. In Derry, nights were always quiet, save for the one night a year a festival came through town. Not many people stayed out late, except for the adults that frequented the local bars and some of the teenagers that liked to loiter around. This was… different. Way different. He had always thought he would like different, but now he wasn’t so sure.

Richie took his eyes off of the glowing lights of the buildings and hurried to catch up with his family, not having noticed that he had slowed down. He caught up to Mike’s side, behind their chatting mothers, and stuck a little closer than he probably should have. The teen glanced down at him. Richie just held onto the straps of his backpack and gave him a smile he hoped didn’t look weird.

“How far’s your town from here?” He asked.

“Hawkins? Like, an hour-ish.” Mike switched the suitcase from one hand to the other. 

Richie grabbed at his arm but Mike pulled away immediately. The younger boy tripped, a car passing by, just as he did. He yelped, scrambling not to fall. The second he regained his balance he moved over to his cousin’s other side, away from the street.

“Shit, are you okay?” Mike asked.

“Michael, watch your language!” Karen warned from ahead of them, looking back at them for just a second.

Richie adjusted his backpack and his glasses, pretending his heart wasn’t pounding out of his chest. “I’m okay, but are you? I mean, you don’t have, like,  _ any  _ muscles.”

“Ugh,” Mike sighed, rolling his eyes. “Neither do you.”

The two boys lapsed into silence for a moment. Karen and Maggie were still chatting ahead of them, catching up after years apart. The way they talked was friendly and familiar, but something about it seemed tense to Richie. Maybe it was just that his mom was so tired after having to deal with him for an entire day and Auntie Karen was still a stranger in his eyes. Maybe he was just misreading things. He couldn’t tell.

Richie gripped the strap of his backpack tighter. He wanted to hold his mom’s hand, but he knew he couldn’t do that. He hadn’t held her hand since he was five and he hadn’t even thought about it since he was six. He was too old for babyish stuff like that, and he really didn’t want to be yelled at again for getting on her nerves like he already had been countless times that day, even though most of the time he hadn’t intended to.

Just as another car that seemed like it was going way too fast passed by, Richie took a careful step closer to Mike. Mike was still a stranger too, the same as Auntie Karen, and he was older than the Bowers’ Gang. But while Mike was tall, he had no muscles and he looked like a complete dork, wearing a polo shirt and shorts on top of the weird fluffy bowl cut he had for hair. Richie didn’t know if he could actually trust his cousin yet, but he was the least threatening person there right then, so he made the choice to temporarily trust the older boy.

Mike glanced down at him again. Richie just gave him another smile.

\-----

Mike wasn’t sure what to think of Richie. Well, he did. The kid was an obnoxious loudmouth that couldn’t stay still or keep his hands to himself, that was more than obvious. What Mike actually wasn’t sure about was whether Richie was acting like that because he was just like that, or because he was a little kid that had just spent about twenty-four hours traveling to a place he hadn’t been since he was a toddler and didn’t know how to deal with a ton of built up energy.

Either way, Mike could  _ not _ stand him at the moment. The walk to the car had been annoying enough, but the ride back to Hawkins was shaping up to be much, much worse. They had only been on the road for about five minutes and Richie was already fidgeting so much that it was driving Mike out of his mind. He figured he only had a few more minutes before the kid couldn’t keep his mouth shut any longer, seeing as he was only distracted because of the sights of the city, straining his neck to look out as many of the windows as possible, and they were about to get on the highway.

In general, Mike wasn’t really bothered by people who talked a lot or who fidgeted. He and his friends weren’t exactly quiet, they shouted and bickered and shit-talked each other plenty, and maybe he shouldn’t have been so bothered by his cousin. He barely knew him and it probably wasn’t fair to make assumptions about a nine-year-old he hadn’t seen in about seven or eight years. But it was already nearly ten at night, they had spent a lot longer waiting in that bus station than they had anticipated, and he had never been a fan of long-ish car rides in the first place.

They pulled onto the highway and Richie slumped back into his seat, looking unsure of what to do with himself now. Mike remained slouched in his own spot, arms crossed. He stared out the window, occasionally glancing at his cousin.

“So, Richie,” Karen said from the driver’s seat, briefly looking at the back seat through the mirror. “You were saying something about what your friends did for your birthday?”

Richie sat up straight, looking excited, as if he wasn’t often asked to talk about himself or his life.

“Right! So we all met up at Bill’s house ‘cause we usually meet up at Bill’s house- this was the next weekend, ‘cause my birthday was on a Sunday this year. Anyway, we met up at Bill’s house, and I thought we were just gonna hang out like we usually do, but  _ then _ -”

Richie went on to ramble about every single little detail of the mini-party his friends had thrown him. Mike zoned out after a moment, though he wondered how the hell this kid could seemingly remember  _ everything  _ that had happened that day. His memory definitely hadn’t been that good when he was nine. It wasn’t even that good, now.

“-then Bill let me ride his bike down the street for a bit. I have my own bike, I got it for my last birthday, but Bill’s bike is the  _ fastest  _ in town and I’d been begging him for  _ months  _ to let me try it out and- Ah!” Richie suddenly yelped. Mike’s eyes snapped over to the boy.

“My bike!” He hit the back of his mother’s seat, not hard but enough to make her clench her jaw. “Mom, I left my bike in the front yard! Somebody’s gonna steal it!”

“Maybe you should have thought of that before we left,” Aunt Maggie said as calmly as she seemed to be able to manage, which wasn’t very calm.

Richie crossed his arms in defiance. “Maybe you should’ve thought about leaving before we left! You didn’t give me time to think of it!”

“Richard, enough,” Maggie warned, voice low.

“This is such bull-”

Maggie turned and slapped Richie on the knee before he had a chance to finish the word. There was no way it could have hurt much, but he flinched. She glared at him with wide, accusatory eyes. He stared right back, scowling.

“You watch your mouth around your aunt, you understand me!?” She barked. “God, I can’t believe you’re my son sometimes! Where on Earth do you get that mouth?”

She shook her head disapprovingly and turned to face forward again. Mike saw his mother give her sister a side eye in the mirror, a much more subtle look of disapproval on her face. Mike held a grimace on his own face, understanding how she felt. Although for her it was probably a more familiar feeling than it was for him.

“You know, sometimes I wish I had had a girl instead of a boy. I always wanted a little girl.” Maggie quieted her voice in hopes she would only be heard by her sister, but the car was small and the radio wasn’t on. “I just can’t understand him. I could understand a little girl.”

Richie sank back into his seat, staring at his knees. His glasses were slipping down his nose but he didn’t fix them.

Karen gave her a terse smile, glancing in the mirror at the back seat once again before returning her eyes to the road. “Maybe you can tell me about that later, Mags.”

Maggie looked lost for a moment, like she had only just realized what she had been saying. “R-right. Of course, Karrie.”

The car was quiet for a good ten minutes, not a word being said. Richie kept his head hung over his chest and his arms crossed, only moving to wiggle his legs a little bit. Mike went back to staring out the window, not sure of what to do or say. He let his mind wander for a while until he felt a hand tap his shoulder.

“What’s Hawkins like?” Richie asked, looking at him with eyes that looked way too big in the magnification of his glasses. Which, Mike realized, weren’t even children’s glasses.

He shrugged. “Just like any other small town, I guess. Not much to it.”

“Well, what’s there for fun?”

“Uh, there’s a public pool, an arcade, some parks. Sometimes we’ll walk around the forest or we- I mean, some people hang out near the quarry, but the cliffs are really tall and there’s no safety fences or whatever.”

“Sounds a lot like Derry.”

“Like I said, just like any other small town. Oh, and they just opened up a mall, it’s called Starcourt. Tons of stuff there. There’s a movie theater and another arcade.”

“Whoa, a mall!?” Richie looked completely astounded. “That sounds nothing like Derry! Are you sure Hawkins is a small town? I didn’t think small towns got malls.”

Mike let himself smile, just a little bit. “I’m pretty sure, but I haven’t really been to many other places. What’s Derry like?”

“It’s the a- butt-crack of nowhere, Maine.” He lifted his arms up for emphasis. “Seriously, there’s nothing! I mean, there’s an arcade in the movie theater, but they only have like, five games? And there’s an ice cream shop which is pretty rad, but none of the other shops are any cool. My friends and I usually just ride our bikes around or hang out at someone’s house or in the barrens or at the quarry. Yeah, we have a quarry too, but the cliffs are a lot lower. A lot of high schoolers dare each other to jump off the highest one. Oh, there’s a few farms too, but we’re not supposed to play in the fields.”

“That sounds a lot like Hawkins,” Mike said.

“Yeah, but you guys get a mall! That’s so cool.”

“Maybe Mike will take you to the mall with him and his friends sometime, Richie,” Karen suggested.

“That’d be awesome! I’ve never been to a mall before.” He pushed his glasses up, finally, grabbing them by the side to do so. They slipped halfway back down again almost immediately.

“Hey, what’s up with your glasses?” Mike asked. His dad wore glasses, too, but they didn’t make his eyes look that huge.

“Huh? Oh, uh.” He adjusted them yet again. “They don’t make kids glasses in my prescription, at least that’s what they said at my eye doctor’s.”

“They make you look like a cricket.”

“Hey!” The younger boy smacked him lightly on the shoulder, laughing a little. “Rude!”

Mike laughed himself, catching his mother’s smile in the rearview mirror, and the look of relief on Aunt Maggie’s face. Richie asked more questions as they drove. The kid seemed happy that someone was listening to him and even teasing him a bit, plus he didn’t fidget as much when he was talking, so Mike was glad to indulge him. Though, he did wave his arms around quite a bit.

Maybe summer with his cousin wasn’t going to be as bad as Mike had thought it would be. He was a bit glad that he had decided to sleep in the basement, however.

\-----

It was just after eleven p.m., according to Mike’s watch, when they finally pulled into the driveway of a pretty average suburban house.

“Alright, here we are!” Karen announced as she turned off the car.

Richie stepped out of the car at the same time as everyone else, stretching his arms and legs. The exhaustion of the trip was finally catching up with him. He yawned, grabbing his backpack out of the back seat and shutting the door, much harder than he intended. His mother shot him a warning look but he just shrugged a silent apology.

“Mike, can you grab the suitcases out of the trunk, please?” Karen asked.

“Uh huh,” Mike answered.

He glanced back at his cousin, flashing the teenager a smile before following his aunt and mother inside.

The inside of the house was nothing special. It was the same decently organized, relatively clean kind of home one would expect from a suburban neighborhood. Just like Bill and Stan’s houses, it was much cleaner than his own and much better cared for. It was warm and cozy, and he could see lights still on in the kitchen and the living room.

“You can take your shoes off, sweety,” Auntie Karen told him with a friendly smile.

Richie kicked one of his shoes off but had to toe off the other, almost falling over to the process. He wiggled his toes in his socks, relieved to finally have his just slightly too tight shoes off after over an entire day. He put the beat up, dirty, no longer white converse with the other pairs of shoes near the door. They looked out of place, sitting next to a shiny pair of leather loafers and a very clean pair of white mary janes. He pushed his sneakers with his foot so that they weren’t quite so close to the other shoes.

Karen, Maggie, and a girl with curly brown hair were talking in the kitchen when Richie walked in. The girl was older than Mike and wore pink pajamas, so he guessed that she was Nancy.

“It’s really nice to see you again, Aunt Maggie,” Nancy said, smiling sweetly.

“It’s good to see you too, Nancy. Gosh, you’ve turned into quite the pretty young woman.”

“Oh, uh,” she chuckled. “Thank you, Aunt Maggie.”

“How was Holly?” Karen asked.

“She didn’t want to go to bed without you there, but I read her a few stories and she fell asleep eventually.”

“Thank you so much, honey.”

Richie stepped up to his mom’s side so that he was in front of Nancy and next to the kitchen island.

“Oh!” Karen exclaimed. “Nancy, this is your cousin, Richie. Richie, this is Nancy.”

Nancy extended her hand and Richie shook it, but not as hard as he had shaken Mike’s hand.

“Are you still as talkative as I remember?” Nancy asked, teasing.

“Much more! I never shut up,” he admitted. Just then, a vague memory popped into his head. “Heeeey, didn’t you drop a cupcake on my head one time?”

She looked perplexed for a moment, glancing to the side in thought, until she gasped slightly and started chuckling. “Oh, gosh, I totally did!”

“Did you?” Karen asked.

“Yeah, um, that last Thanksgiving they visited, during desert I accidentally dropped my cupcake on Richie when he was playing on the floor.” She shook her amusedly. “I can’t believe you remembered that, I don’t think you were even two yet.”

He adjusted his glasses, smiling proudly. “I have a really great memory. I get all A’s in school! My friend Stan gets really jealous whenever we get report cards, ‘cause he always gets B’s in math.” He shrugged, sticking his nose up a little. “I tell him I could tutor him, but he never takes me up on the offer.”

Maggie shook her head at him. She rubbed at her eye.

“Hey, mom,” Mike said from the door of the kitchen. “I put Richie’s bag upstairs, and uh, oh.” He walked in, handing the smaller suitcase to Maggie. “Yeah. I’m gonna go to bed.”

“Okay, sweetheart. Thank you for coming with me. Goodnight.”

“‘Night.” He disappeared through a door, going down to what was likely a basement, going by the sound of stairs.

“I should be getting to bed, too. I have work in the morning,” Nancy said.

“Of course. Thank you for staying up, sweetheart. Sleep well.” Karen gave her daughter a kiss on the cheek.

“Goodnight, Aunt Maggie. Goodnight, Richie.”

“Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, my dear lady!” Richie said, faking an English accent.

Nancy laughed a little as she headed upstairs.

“Okay! Mags, just let me show Richie were he’ll be staying and then I’ll get the couch ready for you. Make yourself comfortable in the meantime, there should be some tea in the cabinet above the stove if you want any.” Karen stepped forward, putting a gentle hand on Richie’s shoulder and directing him away from the kitchen.

“Thank you so much, Karrie,” Maggie said. She looked a lot older than her sister, for a second. She was just tired, he reminded himself.

Karen lead Richie up the stairs and into a bedroom with bunk beds, blue walls, and a lot of nerdy posters and knick knacks all around. This had to be Mike’s room. Was he taking Mike’s room? But he had gone down to the basement. His suitcase sat at the end of the lower bunk, so he was definitely taking Mike’s room.

“You’ll be staying in Mike’s room for now. You can choose whichever bunk you want.” He must not have been doing the best job at keeping his expression neutral, as she quickly added, “Don’t worry, Mike decided himself to sleep in the basement. He spends most of his time down there, anyway.”

“Okay, cool.” Richie tossed his backpack on the bottom bunk.

Karen walked over to the door and gestured down the hallway. “The bathroom’s right over there. Mine and your Uncle Ted’s room is right there if you need us. That’s Holly’s room there, you’ll meet her in the morning. Then Nancy’s room is right across the hall. Now,” she smiled at him. “Why don’t you get ready for bed? You must be exhausted after all that traveling. You can shower in the morning.”

He nodded.

“Then, tomorrow, I was thinking I could convince Mike to show you around town. How does that sound?”

He smiled, just a bit. “That sounds great, Auntie Karen.”

“Alright, it’s a plan, then.” She smiled right back then headed back downstairs.

Richie carefully closed the door behind her. He stood there for a moment, not really wanting to turn around. Mike’s bedroom actually had  _ stuff  _ in it. Posters, toys, figures, just all sorts of  _ things  _ all over the place, filling every corner. All of his friends’ rooms were pretty much the same, just covered in stuff that he couldn’t even dream of owning. He never spent much time in his friends’ rooms, though, they were usually running around playing somewhere else, even in the winter. And now he had to sleep in a room just like theirs every single night, but it wasn’t his and none of the stuff was his.

He thought of his own room, with its chipping off-white paint, stained and fraying carpet, old creaky bed. He closed his eyes for a second, picturing the room in his mind. Then he took a deep breath, held it for a moment, and let it out slowly.

Richie turned around and marched over to the bed, sitting down on the mattress and trying not to act shocked at how soft it was. He dragged his suitcase onto the bed and started pulling out folded clothes, not caring where he threw them, until he found his pajamas. Well, they weren’t really pajamas, exactly. They were an old pair of sweatpants that didn’t even cover his ankles anymore and an oversized, hole-filled Aerosmith shirt that had belonged to his dad at some point.

He quickly changed, dug out his toothbrush and nearly empty toothpaste, brushed his teeth, then headed downstairs.

He was barely in the kitchen door when he heard the soft sound of crying. He peered into the living room. His mother sat on the couch, her head in her hands, being comforted by Auntie Karen.

“It’ll be alright, Mags,” Karen cooed. “You’ll work this out. You were always the strong one when we were kids.”

“No, Karrie, you were. You were. You still are. I-”

She looked up suddenly, noticing her son approaching. She stood up in a flash, wiping tears from her cheeks, and passed him to get to the kitchen sink.

Richie scrunched himself up against the doorframe of the living room, watching as she went past.

“I, uh… I just came to say goodnight.”  _ I don’t really get to do that at home, mom’s always at work _ , he didn’t say. “So… goodnight, mom.”

She sniffed and turned on the faucet.

He looked over at his aunt, who still sat on the couch. “Goodnight, Auntie Karen.”

She smiled warmly, sweetly. The same smile she had given Nancy and Mike earlier. “Goodnight, Richie. Don’t worry about sleeping in late, I’ll save some breakfast for you.”

He nodded stiffly, then dashed back up the stairs.

Richie didn’t bother to close the door quietly, throwing himself on the bed. He breathed heavily for a moment.  _ Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry, only babies cry _ .

After a moment his breathing calmed. He sat up and grabbed his backpack, digging Bedtime Bear out of the bottom. He very carefully took his glasses off and placed them on the nearby desk, then went over to the light switch and turned off the light. He buried himself under the covers and held the teddy bear tight against his chest.

He just needed some sleep. He wasn’t going to cry himself to sleep. He just needed to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I guess Sunday is the aimed for day for new chapters now. The next chapter, however, might be a little late, seeing as I have to write a whole ass research paper by Thursday and start a separate essay on the psychoanalysis of the destruction of the creaturette (as my professor calls it) in Frankenstein. Yay, English major!  
Hope you guys enjoy this one. It took a lot more effort than I had thought.  
~Mel


	4. Chapter 4

Mike woke to the sound of a door slamming open and stomping on the stairs. The sounds didn’t entirely register at first, floating somewhere in the back of his awareness as he stirred slightly. A bit of light shone into his closed eyes. He scrunched his eyebrows and rolled onto his stomach, burying his face in his pillow. For just a second everything felt peaceful again, like he could drift off back to his dreams, but the stomping grew louder and was now accompanied by yelling from an unfamiliar kid’s voice.

“Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey, Mikey!” the voice called. “C’mon, get up! Auntie Karen made breakfast.”

Oh right, Richie. Had he been this annoying last night, or was Mike just drowsy from having just woken up? Either way, he was irritated.

He lifted his head just high enough to speak. “I’ll be up in a minute! F- Go away!”

Richie snickered from wherever he was. Footsteps, much quieter than the stomping, sounded up the stairs.

He dropped his face back onto his pillow, but the damage was already done. He was awake and he was staying awake. Great. He sighed and rolled onto his back, hesitantly blinking his eyes open until he was staring at the ceiling rafters. It was summer, couldn’t they let him sleep in? Even just a little bit? Sure, he was getting pancakes, but there would probably still be pancakes even if he slept in, mom always made too many.

Mike got out of bed with a groan. He grabbed his watch off of the coffee table as he headed towards the bathroom. 8:46. That wasn’t too early, he supposed. Still, it would have been nice if he hadn’t been woken up at all.

He quickly brushed his teeth and got dressed. He frowned when he finally noticed the waves that had made their way into his hair in his sleep. He grabbed the mousse he had stolen from Nancy out of the medicine cabinet and ran a bit through his hair before combing it out until it was perfectly straight. It always made his hair a bit puffier than he would have liked, but at least it was straight, unlike his mom’s or Nancy’s hair. Or Richie’s, he guessed. Richie’s hair already curled a bit, and he figured it would probably just get curlier as he got older, the same way Nancy’s had and, fortunately, his own mostly hadn’t.

Everyone was already eating by the time he got upstairs. They sat in their usual spots- his mom between his dad and little sister Holly, Nancy across the table from them, an empty place next to her for him, with an extra old fold-out chair pulled in from the garage for Richie. Aunt Maggie was nowhere to be seen, probably just over in the living room.

Richie was scarfing down his pancakes and eggs like he was never going to eat again.

“Slow down!” Karen scolded gently just as Mike took his spot. “You’re going to make yourself sick.”

He must have pulled some kind of face, because she quickly followed with, “You can eat as much as you like, just don’t eat so fast. There’s no point in eating all that if you’re just going to lose it all.”

Richie swallowed with a gulp. “Sorry. All I ate yesterday was candy bars and chips from vending machines, and I don’t ever get pancakes and eggs. I mean, I eat eggs all the time, I cook them myself. But this is super good, I love pancakes!”

“Well, I’m glad you like it.” She turned to her son. “Good morning, Mike. Did you sleep well?”

Mike shrugged. “Alright.”

“That’s good. Any… plans for today?”

Karen gave him that look she made when she was expecting him to give a very specific answer, usually one he didn’t actually know- eyebrows raised slightly, small expectant smile, staring right into his eyes. Mike ignored the look and scooped some eggs on his plate, then grabbed the maple syrup. Nancy side eyed him, scowling. She had always been disgusted by his eating habits.

“Not really, I guess,” he said, hoping that was satisfying enough for his mother.

It was. “Then you wouldn’t mind showing Richie around town today, would you? He’s a bit young to go out by himself, but I think it would be nice for him to get to know the town if he’s going to be here for a while, and maybe you two can get to know each other a little better.”

“Sure, mom.”

She nodded her head towards Richie. Mike looked over at him. He was filling his plate with more eggs.

“That sound good to you?”

“Yeah!” He grabbed the maple syrup and started putting it on his eggs. Nancy pulled another face, and Mike smiled a bit. “Can we go to the mall, too? I’ve never been to a mall before. I think I told you that already.” He grabbed the ketchup, which was clearly meant for the potatoes, and started putting that on his eggs, too. Now Mike pulled a face, probably very similar to Nancy’s.

“Gross,” he said.

“Mike,” Karen warned. But Richie just laughed and started mixing the unholy concoction of scrambled eggs, maple syrup, and ketchup with his fork.

“Eddie says I’m gonna give myself digestive issues and diabetes,” he said.

“Is Eddie one of your friends?” Nancy asked, making an obvious attempt not to look at the eggs.

“Yep! He’s my best friend. Well, so’s Bill and Stan and Bev and Ben and Mike- oh yeah! I gave a friend with the same name as you.” He smiled at Mike.

Mike gave him a polite smile in return.

He didn’t have to, however, as Richie kept talking. “We’re a whole group. We call ourselves ‘the losers club’! Cool, right? Bowers started calling us that when Ben joined, and now he’s mad that he has to come up with smarter insults.”

“You are certainly a motor mouth,” Ted said. Karen shot her husband a glare.

Richie just laughed again. “My teachers say that, too!”

The rest of breakfast passed with pretty average morning conversation, with the addition of Richie’s interjections and ramblings, plus the faces he made at Holly that set the little girl off laughing. Overall, it felt normal.

Mike remained pretty quiet for most of the meal. He was trying to map out where to bring Richie in his head, and in what order. He didn’t particularly want to spend his day giving a talkative nine-year-old a tour of the town, but he didn’t really want to be mean, either. Mike was smart enough to understand that this whole situation was probably going to be hard for a little kid to deal with, so while he would rather spend the day with El or his friends, he figured he could take one day to show him around. Maybe he could convince Lucas or Will or someone to go with them.

Once he finished eating he rushed downstairs before his mother could notice and grabbed his SuperComm.

“Lucas, come in, over.” There was silence. “Lucas! Come in! Over.” More silence. “Ugh, great. He’s probably already out with Max.”

He dropped the SuperComm and went over to the phone, picking it up for a second to make sure no one was on the line before dialing the Byers’ number.

It rang three times before someone picked up. “Hello? Byers’ residence.”

“Hi, Jonathan,” Mike said. “Is Will there?”

“Uh, yeah, hold on a sec.” He heard Jonathan call Will’s name, some shuffling, and then the phone was picked up again.

“Hi, Mike. How’s it going?” Will greeted.

“Hey, Will. So, my mom’s making me give my little cousin a tour of the town. He talks a lot, like, a lot a lot, and I was wondering if you’d maybe want to come along? Make it more bearable, or something.”

“Oh, you were talking about him yesterday. Sure, sounds like it could be fun. His name’s Richie, right?”

“Yeah. He’s nine. Okay, meet us at my house in a bit.”

“Okay, see ya soon.”

\-----

Richie sat on the ground of the driveway, picking at his frayed shoelaces. Mike stood off to the side, fiddling with his bike and occasionally recounting the money Auntie Karen had given him to buy the two of them lunch later.

“When’s your lame-o friend gonna get here?” Richie asked.

Mike rolled his eyes. “Soon. He lives a few streets away, it takes a bit to get here. And he’s not lame.”

“Well, I dunno that.”

He just wanted to leave already. Get away from his mom for the day. She was acting weird, had been since his dad had slapped her. He knew why she was acting weird. He was old enough to understand that husbands aren’t supposed to hit their wives and he was smart enough to understand that this wasn’t just some fun little summer visit to his estranged Aunt’s house. He knew that he was staying and mom was not. He knew she was going to go home to Derry to either force dad to AA meetings, because he was an alcoholic even though he didn’t drink before or during work, or divorce him. He knew his mom wasn’t telling him because she didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but not telling him was hurting his feelings more. And he really, really didn’t want to think about all of that.

Plus, he really, really wanted to see the mall.

It only took a few more minutes of mentally yelling at himself to not rip apart his already ruined shoelaces and kicking at loose pieces of gravel for another teenager with a worse bowl cut than Mike’s to pull into the driveway on his bike.

“Hey, guys! Sorry it took so long, my mom needed help finding her keys again,” he said.

“She’s always losing her keys,” Mike said.

“Yeah, pretty much every day.”

Richie jumped to his feet and placed himself directly in front of Mike’s friend. Will’s eyebrows went up in surprise for a second, but he smiled politely.

“Hi,” he said. “You’re Richie, right? I’m Will.”

“Nice to meet you, Will!” Richie greeted as cheerily as he possibly could, which by the way Mike looked seemed to sound suitably obnoxious. “Richie Tozier!” 

He extended his hand. Will grabbed it and they shook, but Richie didn’t shake nearly as hard as he had when he had met Mike.

“Uh, Will Byers!” he responded, an amused smile growing on his face.

“Is Will short for William?”

“Um, yeah, it is. ...Is Richie short for Richard?”

“Yep! Better than being called Dick all the time, right?”

“Maybe you should be called Dick,” Mike said. It was hard to tell if he was just teasing by his tone alone, but Richie assumed he was and laughed.

“Then I’d be Robin and could fight crime with Batman!” He kicked and punched at the air next to him for emphasis.

“Dick Grayson isn’t Robin anymore. Jason Todd is, right?” Will asked, looking at Mike.

“Yeah, it’s kinda lame.”

“What!?” Richie shouted. “Since when? Who’s Jason Todd?”

Will shrugged. “The new Robin, I guess. I think they introduced him a few years ago. I dunno, I usually just read Marvel.”

Richie frowned. “That’s lame. Dick was so cool!”

“Hey, maybe we should stop by the comic shop later,” Will suggested, glancing between Mike and Richie.

“That would be cool,” Mike said. “C’mon, let’s get going.”

Both of the older boys got on their bikes and Richie climbed onto the back of Mike’s, grabbing onto his shoulders. They took off down the street. Mike struggled a bit with keeping up with Will, who kept pulling ahead of them and having to cruise to slow back down to their side. It seemed like this was normal for them, though. Mike was just slow, probably because he was such a twig.

It made him think of Eddie. Usually when his bike had a flat tire or needed something else fixed and he couldn’t get it fixed for weeks, he would ride on the back of Bill or Mike Hanlon’s bikes, a couple of times even in the basket after he had twisted his ankle. But once, he had ridden on the back of Eddie’s. Eddie was always the slowest of the group, on purpose because he was afraid of agitating his asthma and his mom not letting him out of the house for a month. That was the reason he never let Richie on his bike, but Mike, Stan, and Ben had all been busy and Beverly had already been on the back of Bill’s bike, her own having been taken away from her for whatever dumb reason he dad had come up with that week. So Eddie let him on his bike, because he knew how much Richie loved the arcade and how long he spent digging up quarters whenever they planned to go. It had taken them even longer than usual to get there, Eddie lagging further behind than usual as he struggled between Richie’s added weight and not giving himself an asthma attack.

But Mike wasn’t Eddie. Mike was older and bigger, if only in height, and probably had some dumb girlfriend that rode on the back of his bike all the time, so he could handle the weight a nine-year-old. He just wasn’t as fast as his friends.

“Are you alright, Richie?” Will asked from next to them.

“Huh? Oh, yeah! I’m just wondering why Mike’s so slow. I mean, my friend Eddie is faster than this and he’s got asthma!” He reached over and poked Mike’s knee, making the bike wobble for a second before regaining balance.

“Watch it!” he hissed. “You’ll get hurt too! Geez.”

Richie laughed, and was glad to hear a small chuckle from Will, as well.

Their first stop was Sattler Quarry, though Mike insisted they just called it ‘the quarry’, just like they did in Derry. Honestly, Richie wasn’t even sure what the name of the Derry quarry even was.

They walked along a dirt-and-gravel road in a forest, very near some cliffs, the bikes temporarily abandoned in some bushes near the road they had entered from.

“So, this is the quarry,” Mike said. “The Sattler Company owns it. They’re never actually, like, around here, so we don’t really know much else. No one actually comes down here all that often, but some high schoolers like to throw parties on the shore down there.”

Mike pointed towards what was most likely the lower part of the quarry, but Richie couldn’t see as it was blocked by the cliffs from how far back they were. He took a few steps closer but Mike grabbed him by the arm and yanked him back, making him stumble.

“Don’t go anywhere near the cliffs!” Mike warned, sounding almost like an angry parent. “It’s a two hundred foot drop into the water. If you fell, you’d die. Then I’d get blamed for it.”

Richie stared for a moment, mouth open slightly in shock, but then breathed a laugh. “Wow! The quarry at home doesn’t have cliffs nearly the high. Older kids like to jump off the tallest one into the water for fun! Hey, maybe we could go swimming here sometime, we do that at home too, ‘cause there’s no public pool.”

Mike scowled. “Gross, no. That water’s so disgusting”

“And it’s about two hundred feet deep, too,” Will added. “Not safe to swim in. Hawkins has a public pool, maybe your Aunt Karen will take you there sometime.”

Richie shrugged, no longer sure that he wanted to go swimming at all, at least not around so many strangers. He didn’t even own a bathing suit. “Maybe. Has anyone actually jumped off the cliffs before. Ya know, like suicide?”

“How do you even know what that is?” Mike asked, looking mildly concerned.

He shrugged again, kicking at rocks as they walked. “My neighbor’s sister killed herself, it was the talk of the town last summer.”

“Okay then… Well, I don’t think anyone’s actually jumped here before, people in Hawkins don’t really do that. There’s a lot of rumors about people jumping, but you know it’s all bullshit because it never kills them. A kid fell once, a couple years ago.”

It was Richie’s turn to scowl. “That sucks.”

They were quiet for a moment.

“Mike almost jumped, once,” Will said.

“Seriously!?” Richie bounced on his heels. “Why? What happened? Why didn’t you do it?”

“C’mon, Will, don’t tell him about that! You promised you wouldn’t say anything,” Mike whined.

His friend just continued. “Some bullies had ganged up on Mike and Dustin- um, Dustin’s another one of our friends, he’s away at science camp right now. So, one of the bullies, Troy, pulled a pocket knife on Dustin and was threatening to cut out his babyteeth.”

“He has this thing called cleidocranial dysplasia,” Mike explained before Richie could ask. “It makes his teeth take longer to fall out and grow back in, and he doesn’t have collar bones. And he can dislocate and relocate his shoulders whenever he wants. ...It’s kinda cool.”

“Wow! I wanna see that!”

“Maybe I’ll ask him to show you when he gets back. Might take some bribery, though.”

Richie hopped on his toes and turned back to Will. “So? What happened? Did Dustin get his babyteeth cut out?”

“Oh, um, no, he didn’t.”

“Oh. Well, that’s good. So what happened?”

Will smiled, slightly bewildered. He glanced at Mike who just shrugged, and continued the story. “Troy said he wouldn’t cut out Dustin’s teeth if Mike jumped into the quarry. He almost did, but then our friend El showed up and stopped him.”

Richie frowned a little. “Is that all? That’s boring.”

“Boring? I almost jumped off a cliff and died,” Mike said. He shook his head at his cousin’s disappointed look. “Troy wouldn’t let go of Dustin, so El broke Troy’s arm.”

“What!? No freaking way! How’d she do that?”

“She’s stronger than she looks,” was all Mike supplied.

“I dunno what she looks like.”

“Well, anyway, just don’t go near the cliffs if you decide to play down here, alright?” Mike began to walk off.

“Okay, okay, I get it.”

They spent the rest of the morning going around town, Mike and Will pointing out various different places in town and telling little stories about them, but barely stopping to let him see any of them. He tried to keep track of how to get to each place, but it was hard keeping his mind on that. He did, at least, take note of the police station, and the officer he was told to go to if he ever got in trouble, some man named Hopper. Richie didn’t really like the police, but he figured it was better if he knew of at least one officer in town, just in case of… something. Did things like that even happen in a small town? They didn’t really happen in Derry, as far as he knew.

By lunch time, they made it to the mall. Richie gaped as they made their way inside. Everything was so shiny and new, even the linoleum floors. Neon signs glowed, people walked and talked and laughed everywhere, different music floated out from each store. Oh, and there were so many stores! He hadn’t even heard of most of them. Derry had a few chain stores and restaurants, but most of the shops were old mom and pop places that had been there since before World War II, some even older than that. There was nothing like this, not yet at least.

“This is rad,” he said.

They stopped at the food court first. Mike bought them both burgers and fries from Burger King, even letting him get a full sized soda, while Will just got himself some chicken nuggets.

Richie was busy scarfing down his burger when another teenager and a red haired girl approached the table they sat at. They were holding hands and the girl had an ice cream cone in her other hand.

“Hey, guys,” the teenager said.

“Hey, Lucas, Max,” Mike said.

“Hi,” Will said.

“Richie, this is Lucas and Max, more of my friends. Guys, this is my cousin, Richie.”

“Hi!” He greeted them through a mouthful of food, swallowing before he said anything else. “I like your hair, Max, it’s just like my friend Bev’s. Really pretty, like Molly Ringwald.!”

Max smiled. “Aw, thanks.” She nudged Lucas, who was clearly her boyfriend. “See, that’s how you pay a girl a compliment.”

“Watch out, dude, or you’re gonna get your girlfriend stolen by a nine-year-old,” Mike said.

The group laughed.

“Oh, ha ha,” Lucas said.

They sat down at the table. Richie continued scarfing down his food as the older kids talked and joked about a bunch of things that he didn’t know about. When he finished his fries, he looked over at Mike’s. “Are you gonna finish those?”

“Maybe,” Mike answered.

“That’s not a real answer.”

Mike shoved his fries towards Richie. Richie immediately started chowing down on those, too.

“Geez, you eat a lot for someone so tiny,” Max said.

“I’m not that tiny! Eddie’s smaller than me.” He stuffed another fry in his mouth and adjusted his glasses defiantly. “We don’t have much food at my home, so I’m stocking up now. Like- like a bear, when they get ready to hibernate. But I’m not gonna hibernate.”

He didn’t notice the awkward quiet that fell over the table for a moment, nor the worried glances the teenagers gave Mike.

“...I don’t think bears start storing for hibernation until the fall,” Will said.

“It’s a metaphor, or something.” He flexed his non-existent arm muscles. “Gotta eat up and grow strong! I don’t want to be small like Mikey here.” He grabbed Mike’s arm and shook him slightly, putting on his best- that is, absolutely terrible- Conan the Barbarian impression as he spoke. “Tiny man with tiny arms, you’ll snap like a twig!”

That got laughs out of Will, Lucas, and Max. Richie smiled proudly at Mike’s annoyed shake of his head.

The conversation quickly moved on, and so did the group. With his soda still in hand, they started wandering around the mall, the teenagers chatting amongst themselves about things Richie didn’t understand yet or couldn’t keep up with. He tried to join in, asking questions and making quips, even skipping around them and jumping in an attempt to get their attention, but all of it largely went ignored. He couldn’t tell if this was because they were actually ignoring him or just hadn’t heard him. The mall was pretty loud…

He wondered if this was how Georgie felt when everyone hung out at Bill’s house and didn’t include him in their games. But Georgie was really little, still just a toddler, and got over it quickly. Plus, whenever they could, they did try to involve him, like when they were just fooling around in the backyard. He wished he was playing at Bill’s with him and Georgie instead of wandering around behind a group of teenagers right then, even if the mall was really cool.

They finally made it to the arcade, and Richie forgot all about Bill and Georgie for the moment. The arcade was huge compared to the one in Derry. Derry’s arcade sat in the front of the local movie theater, featuring about seven arcade cabinets, an ancient pinball machine, and a photobooth. This place, called Time-Out Arcade, had at least twenty arcade cabinets, three pinball machines, a couple skee ball games, and a rewards counter with everything from pencils with silly designs to blow-up balloon hammers to big teddy bears.

“Whoa,” he said, taking in everything around him.

While his friends ran off, Mike stopped at a coin machine. He put several dollars into it and spat quarters back out, which he quickly split into two piles. He dumped one of the piles, about $2.50 in quarters, into Richie’s hand.

“Don’t leave the arcade without telling me, okay?” he said, then walked off himself.

“Alright,” Richie replied to no one, stuffing the quarters in his pocket.

He wandered the arcade for a while, overwhelmed by the sheer amount of different games he could possibly play. There were even two Space Invaders cabinets! One of them was empty, so he decided to play that. But Richie was bad at Space Invaders and kept dying, burning through half of his quarters in about fifteen minutes. Then, just as he was starting to get good at it, he was pushed to the ground, right on his ass, quarters flying out of his pocket.

Richie quickly fixed his now askew glasses and blinked up at whoever had pushed him. A group of teenagers, older than Mike bet younger than Nancy, now stood around the machine.

“Hey!” he shouted, the first bubbles of frustration starting to build in his chest. “I was playing that!”

“And now we are!” One of the teens, wearing a mullet that reminded him of the one Bowers was starting to grow out, snarled. “Fuck off, kid.”

Richie growled, but he knew better than to mess with bigger kids, especially when there weren’t any rocks available to throw at them. So he stood up, ignored their laughter by gritting his teeth, and tried to grab as many quarters as he had dropped as he could. Many had rolled under the machines, and most of the rest had already been picked up by other people. He managed to grab only one Combined with the ones left in his pocket, he had three. What could he do with three quarters? 

“Jackshit,” he muttered to himself.

Whatever. Maybe Mike would give him a few more quarters, just so he could play a few rounds of Frogger or Donkey Kong, or something.

He found Mike at the Star Wars cabinet which, holy shit, he didn’t even know that existed, how cool! His friends all stood around the machine as well, cheering him on and shouting at him what to do. Richie tried to peer through the crowd, but they stuck closely to each other’s sides and they were all too tall for him to see over them. On his tiptoes, he could just see over Max’s shoulders, but they jostled around too much for that matter. He kept trying, anyway.

“Mike,” he called. “Mike!”

“What, Richie?” Mike said, barely breaking his attention from the screen.

“Some assholes pushed me over, I lost my quarters.”

“Huh?”

“I lost my quarters!” he repeated, louder. “Can I have a few more?”

“Sorry, that’s all my mom gave us.”

Max glanced at Richie, then gave Lucas a pointed look. Lucas shook his head, confused, but she just nodded seriously towards Richie. He sighed, but turned towards the younger boy anyway, pulling a couple quarters out of his pocket.

“Here. Get some good games out of them. And if you ever meet my sister, do not tell her I gave you money. Then she’ll just bug me about it for the rest of summer.”

Richie took the quarters with a little smile. “Thanks. You have a sister?”

“Yeah. She’s ten and annoying as hell. You wouldn’t like her.”

"How do you know that?" the younger boy questioned.

“Are you friends with any girls?” Max asked.

He hopped on his toes. “Yeah! Her name's Beverly. She has hair just like yours! Sometimes we throw rocks at bullies together."

She nodded. “You’d totally like Erica, then. Introduce them sometime, Lucas!”

Lucas groaned. “And have her teach him how to be an obnoxious little snot? No thanks.”

“Oh, I already know how to be that.”

Max chuckled as Lucas rolled his eyes. Richie smiled innocently.

"C'mon, you're right next door," she said, nudging her boyfriend with her elbow.

"Please!" Richie begged, bouncing on his toes. He could use a friend near his own age.

"Maybe, alright?" Lucas turned back towards the game.

"I'll introduce you if he won't," Max offered, then turned away herself.

He stood around for a moment, watching the group as they continued to cheer Mike on and yell and shout. He wondered what Mike’s score was. He wondered how that game played. He wanted to join in. But instead, he turned on his heels and went to find a different game to play.

He played Frogger for as long as the two quarters he had been so kindly given allowed, which was surprisingly long considering he wasn’t usually that good at that game, either. He wandered around for a bit after that, watching other kids play games he had never heard of and trying to find dropped quarters, with no success. 

He sighed. “This is boring.”

For a second, Richie wanted to go home. But he couldn’t, and he knew that. At the very least, he wanted to leave the arcade. What had looked so cool and amazing just a little while ago was suddenly too bright too noisy, and too busy. He tried to his arms glued to side as he once again tried to find his cousin, ducking and dodging to avoid running into anyone else.

They were still at the Star Wars game cabinet, but now Lucas was at the controls. They were just as tightly packed together. 

“Mike.” He tapped his arm.

“Yeah?” Mike asked, not looking away from the screen.

“I’m bored.”

“We’re taking turns on this, you can watch, if you want.”

The suggestion was polite. Mike even sounded kind, though he still didn’t look away from the screen. He didn’t particularly want to, he just wanted to leave, but Richie tried watching anyway. The teens were still too tall and too tightly stuck to each other’s sides, so all he could make out were some flashes of color and the annoying sounds coming from the machine. They mixed in with the sounds from the other machines, the talking and laughter from people, and the music from somewhere. His head was starting to hurt. He wanted to leave.

“Mike, I need to pee,” he said.

“Huh?”

“I need to pee!”

Mike looked down at him, mild concern on his face. But then he glanced back at the machine, and then back at Richie again.

“I’ll take him.”

They both looked at Will. Richie hadn’t even noticed he had been paying attention.

“You sure?” Mike asked.

“Yeah, it’s no problem. I kinda have to go, too.”

“Okay. That alright, Richie?”

“Yeah.”

Mike nodded and turned back to the game. Richie looked over at Will, who just gestured slightly at him to head towards the exit.

Just outside, Richie stopped. “I don’t actually need to pee,” he admitted.

Will smiled, but kept walking. “I know. I get like that sometimes, too. I mean, I get overwhelmed, too.”

“I don’t-” but Richie cut himself off. “Yeah. That place is a lot bigger than my arcade.”

They stopped at a bench a few stores down from the arcade and sat. Richie kicked his feet at the shiny linoleum tiling but didn’t say anything. He wouldn’t know what to say. The only teenagers he had ever interacted with were Henry Bowers and his goons, and that was always because they were picking on him.

“I hope you’re not mad at Mike,” Will said.

Richie looked up at him, still kicking his feet. “I’m not.”

“Oh, that’s good. He’s really nice, you know. He’s just, um… I guess he’s just not that good with new people.”

He shrugged. “Me neither. I wasn’t really nice when Ben joined my friends. We’re great friends now, though.”

“You’ve met almost all of my friends. What are your friends like?”

Richie adjusted his glasses, pushing the hair that fell in his face back out of the way. “They’re really cool.”

“What are their names?”

“You… actually wanna know?”

“Totally!” Will said, cheerfully.

“I didn’t think a teenager would care about what some kid has to say about anything.”

He smiled understandingly. “It’s not fun to be ignored, even if it’s unintentional. I know that feeling pretty well.”

Richie stopped kicking his feet. “Well, I’ve really only got six friends. Bill, Ben, Mike- his last name’s Hanlon- Beverly, Stanley, and Eddie. All of them are my best friends! I really don’t get why people think you can only have one best friend, it’s stupid.”

Will chuckled. “Me neither. Me, Mike, Lucas, and Dustin are all best friends, too. Then I guess El and Max are probably best friends. I think.”

Richie laughed. “You’re not best friends with either of the girls? I’m best friends with Beverly.”

“You said she has hair like Max, right?”

They talked for a while, Richie didn’t keep track of the time, until the rest of the group found them later. They wandered the mall for a little bit longer. Will talked with Richie the entire time, encouraging the rest to talk with him and include him in their conversations, as well.

When they all got on their bikes to head home, Richie still on the back of Mike’s, and Max on the back of Lucas’s, Richie was back to picking on everyone again.

He smiled the entire ride back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a bitch to write. I wasn't sure at first how I wanted it to go and had to start it over, then I was super busy and also didn't know where to go with it. But I got it done! I don't really like it all that much but it's fine. Just introducing some more characters and dynamics and stuff. Next chapter will be better.  
It's going to be a while until I post the next chapter, though. Got some stuff to sort through, plus I want to finish the story I've been working on for my twin au, work on some other fanfic (FFXII and Star Trek: The Next Generation if anyone's interested), and I want to take some time to make skeleton plan for the next few chapters in this story.  
Next post will be by the end of November at the latest!  
~Mel


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